


can you feel it (coming in the air tonight)

by ZombieBabs



Category: The Black Tapes Podcast
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Happy Ending, Happy Halloween, Not So Scary After All, Post Series, Psychic!Strand, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-05
Updated: 2019-10-05
Packaged: 2020-11-24 03:34:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20900975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZombieBabs/pseuds/ZombieBabs
Summary: Alex invites Strand to investigate a haunting...in her bedroom.Pure, lighthearted smut.





	can you feel it (coming in the air tonight)

“Hey,” Alex says, swinging the door open. “Thanks for coming.”

Strand stands on the landing outside Alex’s apartment. He shifts from one foot to the other, one hand on the strap of his laptop bag. “Alex. Thank you for inviting me.”

Alex smiles and nods her head for Strand to enter. She closes the door behind him. “Considering what I invited you here _for_, and what day it is, I’m surprised you came.”

The corner of Strand’s mouth crooks upward. “I would say I’m not normally in the business of making house calls, but, well…”

He drifts off and Alex laughs. “That’s pretty much _all_ you do, isn’t it, Dr. Strand?”

He tilts his head, considering. “Less now that I have a full team.”

“Is that why you jumped at the chance to investigate my haunting? Because you miss it?”

“Alleged haunting,” Strand corrects, but he smiles when he does it. “With Ruby running the Chicago branch of the Institute and Nicole managing the majority of the business in the Seattle branch, I have more time for research. But I suppose I do miss going into the field, leading investigations. Particularly—Particularly when I don’t mind the company with whom I’m investigating.”

He gives her a meaningful look over his glasses and Alex goes warm with pleasure. 

“Oh, sure,” Alex says, waving a hand to distract him from the flush that spreads over her cheeks up into her hair. “I’m the same. Fieldwork is always a thousand times better when you’ve got a great partner.”

Alex returns the meaningful look and delights when two spots of color bloom high on Strand’s cheeks.

Strand clears his throat. “So, the, ah, haunting?”

“Oh, right.” Alex waves at Strand’s gleaming leather shoes, polished to the point where Alex could use them as a mirror to check her mascara. “Feel free to take off your shoes. You can leave your coat on the hook just there, if you want. Make yourself comfortable.”

Strand removes his shoes, lining them up next to Alex’s worn flats. He sheds his coat and hangs it on the hook, smoothing out imaginary wrinkles before he turns to face her.

The years since the-end-of-the-world-that-wasn’t have been kind to Strand. He’s still handsome, perhaps even more so now than when she first described him as such on season one of her podcast. He’s no longer dangerously thin. His skin practically glows with good health. Salt has grown into the pepper of his dark hair, which he’s allowed to grow long. Not quite as long as when Alex found him impersonating a human disaster area in the wreck of his office, surrounded by conspiracy and paranoia—both of which turned out not to be too misplaced—but long enough for a slight wave to curl the ends. Now that he’s stopped wearing it back, he looks less severe. Younger, even, despite the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes.

His eyes. The brightest blue eyes Alex has ever seen. Made even brighter by the newfound _lightness_ about Strand.

He’s free now. It’s obvious. In his step, in his smile. But most importantly, it’s in his eyes.

Fuck, Alex _wants_ him.

She’s wanted him for _years_. And the thing is, he wants her, too. It’s in the way he looks at her, when he doesn’t think she can see him. It’s in the way he licks his lips when Alex strategically bends forward in a lower-than-normal cut top. Or the way his eyes go dark when Alex casually places a hand on his arm whenever they find time to meet to catch up over drinks after long days at their respective offices.

“Do you want a drink or anything or do you just want to get straight to work?” 

“You seemed distressed over the phone. Perhaps we should first put your haunting to rest.” 

Distressed. Right. Alex hides a smile. “Makes sense. Okay, well, it’s right through here. The place with the, ah, most activity.”

Strand follows Alex through her small apartment. He stops short when he realizes where, exactly, Alex has led him. 

“Your bedroom?” he asks, brows drawn. “Alex, I don’t mean to pry, but are you sure—”

“It’s not insomnia,” Alex says, cutting him off. “Really, it’s not. I’ve been getting seven hours, give or take an hour. Promise.”

Alex holds up two fingers in a ‘scout’s honor’ gesture.

Strand studies her for a full minute before he relaxes, satisfied Alex isn’t hiding dark purple bags under her eyes under layers of makeup, like she’d been before the apocalypse-that-wasn’t. He steps over the threshold into Alex’s room with all the gravity of a vampire granted entrance to the home of his unsuspecting victim.

Although, the metaphor doesn’t quite work, because Alex is wholly suspecting. It’s Strand that hasn’t yet caught on.

“Can you describe what you’ve been experiencing?” Strand asks, taking in Alex’s room. The walls, painted a deep, navy blue, the heavy curtains covering her windows, her carefully made bed, and the art hanging on her walls—the majority of it framed articles Alex contributed to over the years, before she made the leap into producing radio at Minnow Beats Whale, before she started her career as a professional podcaster.

“It started a few weeks ago. I was in bed, catching up on the last season of The Good Place—you’d love it; it’s full of nerdy philosophy—and there was this knocking on the wall behind my head. And, no, before you ask, no one lives in the apartment on that side of me. I checked with the office and, for some reason, they can’t seem to keep anyone in that apartment.”

Strand nods. “Anything else?”

“Well, it didn’t stop at the knocking. I would come home and different lights would be turned on. Doors I had left closed would be wide open. And yesterday—well, I decided to call you yesterday because something touched my pillow.”

Strand lifts a brow. “Something touched your pillow?

“Right next to my head. I even thought, ‘Oh, it’s Chloe.’ Chloe is my mom’s cat and whenever I go to visit my mom, Chloe will curl up next to my head while I sleep. But Chloe isn’t here and I don’t have a cat. And there wasn’t anything there, except an imprint on the pillowcase, like something had pressed down.”

Strand approaches the bed, holding his hand over the pillow, hovering there. “Here?”

“Yeah,” Alex says. “Right there.”

Strand shakes his head. “It’s nothing, Alex. If there were anything here, I’d feel it. I’d _see_ it.”

Alex hadn’t counted on his newfound openness about his ‘gift.’ It’s part of the new draw at the Institute, the founder being a psychic who is also a skeptic, who uses his sensitivity to the paranormal to debunk extraordinary claims, who still champions science and modern psychology over his own innate abilities.

“Are you sure?” Alex asks, scrambling. “It usually only happens when I’m laying down. Maybe you—maybe you could check?”

Alex lays down on the bed. Strand towers over her, a smile tugging on his lips. He closes his eyes, humoring her. He opens them and shakes his head. “Still nothing.”

Alex sits up, catching Strand’s hand. “Maybe if you laid down with me?”

Strand’s eyes go wide and dark. He swallows. “Alex?”

Alex licks her lips. She pitches her voice lower, huskier. “Maybe if you laid down with me...something would happen.” 

“I—ah—Alex?”

Alex brings Strand’s hand up to her mouth. She presses a kiss to the open palm of his hand. She raises both brows in question, heart hammering against her ribcage.

“I—” Strand blinks, a look of wonder crossing his face. “Did you—”

“Use a ghost as an excuse to get you into my bed? Yes. Yes, I did. Did it work?”

Strand’s mouth does something complicated before breaking out into a full-fledged grin. He laughs—an actual laugh, not the breathy chuckle she heard from him for so long—and it fills Alex’s bedroom, low and warm. “Yes.”

He lets Alex tug him onto the bed, where he stretches out beside her. He rolls to face her and cups her face in one of his large hands. His thumb sweeps over the arch of her cheekbone before he leans close and kisses her.

Or Alex kisses him. She’s unsure of the specifics, but it doesn’t matter, not when Strand’s lips are pressed against hers. His hand settles at her waist, then slides to rest at her lower back, pulling Alex closer. Alex gets her hands in his hair and smiles into the kiss when Strand breathes out, humming his approval

Strand’s tongue darts out and Alex opens for him, meeting him in the middle. As they kiss—exploring, tasting, teasing—Alex’s hands move to undo the buttons on Strand’s shirt. Strand smiles and dips his hand beneath Alex’s top. He caresses the skin of her back, fingers skirting around the band of her bra, before dancing them over her ribs, making her jump.

“Ticklish,” she says, grinning, when he raises his brow at her.

“I see,” he says, repeating the movement, eyes lighting up when Alex yelps.

She smacks his chest. Then she takes his hand and guides it, beneath her shirt, to cup her breast. His thumb sweeps over the thin lace of her bra, catching her nipple with his nail.

Alex gasps and lets her head fall back. Strand’s lips find the column of her throat and he kisses and nips at her until Alex is left gasping and wet. Strand leans back, taking in the sight of her, drinking it in with eyes that speak of having found an oasis in the middle of a long trek in an endless desert. He bends forward to kiss her and laughs as she chases him when he pulls away to sit up more fully.

He makes short work of the rest of the buttons on his shirt, undoing the buttons at the cuffs with practiced fingers, and shrugs it off, letting it fall to the floor. He stands to undo his belt and step out of his pants. He sits and tugs off his socks, letting them drop on top of the pile of his clothing. He sits on the edge of the bed, then stretches out beside her.

His cock is hard beneath his boxer briefs, tenting the fabric. Alex bites at her bottom lip and looks at Strand from beneath her lashes. 

Strand’s bright blue eyes are nearly black, his pupils blown wide. His hips jerk when Alex reaches out to cup him, squeezing him through the cotton of his underwear. “Ah—Alex.”

Alex kisses him while she teases him, her touch light, trailing her nails across the sensitive skin of his inner thighs. Strand pants against her mouth, his hips rolling involuntarily, searching for friction.

She breaks away just long enough to pull her top over her head and send it sailing across the room, followed by her leggings. She stands by the side of the bed in her lacy bra and underwear, pausing to appreciate the look of hunger on his face, before reaching behind her to unhook her bra.

She shrugs out of the bra and lets it fall to the side. Then, before she can let her nerves get the better of her, Alex steps out of her panties and kicks them to the side, as well.

Alex crawls onto the bed toward Strand. She throws one leg over him, straddling him. She grins at him, her hair falling around her face like a curtain. 

Strand tucks a lock of her hair behind her ear and smiles when it doesn’t stay. He tangles his fingers in the ends, instead, his expression soft, like he could look at her like this forever.

Alex ducks her head, hiding her blush as she bends forward to trail kisses along his jaw.

“Alex?” he says, voice hushed, laced with concern.

Alex smiles—of course Strand would notice—before nipping the shell of his ear. “I’m okay. Just nervous. You?”

“I’m, ah, nervous, as well. We don’t—if you’d like, we can—” 

“No,” Alex says quickly. “No, I want this.”

She kisses him, putting as much heat into it as she can, showing him without words exactly how much she wants this. Wants him.

Strand meets her heat with his own and gasps into her mouth when Alex grinds down. His hips thrust up to meet hers when she rolls her hips and Alex bites at her bottom lip. 

She tugs at the elastic of his boxer briefs. “Off.”

Strand nods. Alex lifts herself off of him and, when Strand raises his hips, helps him to remove of the last of his clothing. She lays down on the bed and Strand rolls to cover her body with his own, his cock trapped between them.

Alex wraps her legs around his waist and rolls her hips, the invitation clear.

Strand smiles and ducks his head, pressing his forehead to hers. With a hand between them, he lines himself up and slowly, excruciatingly slowly, he sinks into her.

“Fuck,” Alex breathes out as Strand groans.

Strand kisses her, his tongue curling around hers, giving her time to adjust to the stretch of him inside her. When Alex shifts, impatient, he withdraws almost completely. With a snap of his hips, he drives himself into her again.

Alex gasps, throwing her head back. She grasps his biceps, trailing her hands across his shoulders to his pectorals. She drags her nails down to catch on his nipples and Strand’s hips stutter before recovering the rhythm, his cock hitting somewhere deep and satisfying within her with each thrust.

When she feels him start to lose the rhythm, when she knows he’s close to finding his climax, Alex reaches between them, circling her clit in time with his thrusts.

Strand smiles, sweat beading on his forehead, and ducks his head to kiss her, swallowing her moans of pleasure.

Alex comes first, her whole body going rigid under Strand, her toes curling as they go numb for one blissful second. Strand presses his face into the crook of her neck and shoulder as he thrusts into her, spilling himself inside her with a groan.

They lay there, neither moving, Strand still inside her, until both have caught their breath. Then, with another groan, Strand pulls out. He kisses Alex on the cheek, chuckling at her look of complete satisfaction, and gets up from the bed, padding toward Alex’s bathroom. He returns with a wet washcloth, but shakes his head when Alex offers to take it from him.

He takes his time, washing the worst of their mess away with care. Alex catches his arm before he can retreat again, tugging him back to her.

The washcloth ends up somewhere on the floor. 

Strand ends up wrapped around Alex, her head tucked beneath his chin.

“Happy Halloween,” Alex whispers into his skin.

Strand’s fingers tangle in Alex’s hair, combing through the strands until Alex’s eyelids droop and sleep begins to creep up on her. “Happy Halloween, Alex.”

**Author's Note:**

> hiiiii~
> 
> so, instead of working on missing (redux) or release or the podcast episode i'm supposed to be writing, i came home from work and wrote this. the idea came to me as i was waiting for my toaster oven to finish cooking me my dinner and it would not let me eat in peace until i promised to write it, so here it is. :) i hope you enjoy!
> 
> also, i PROMISE, as soon as i'm finished with release, i will be back to finish missing (redux). it just might take me a bit to get there, aha.
> 
> anyway, happy spooky month!


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